ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 234 / C & R L N e w s F ast a n d furious: A w eek en d session in b ib lio g ra p h ic in stru ction BvJ Claudia A. Baldwin California State University Dominguez Hills A concentrated BI laboratory at Dominguez Hills. ( j a l i f o r n i a State University, D om inguez Hills bills itself as an u rban institution which provides “a unique and attractive alternative to other, much larger or more expensive universities in the Los An­ geles a r e a .” O ne c h a ra c te ristic th a t makes us unique is th at nearly forty percent of our students complete their degree requirem ents at night and on weekends. For m any of the University’s undergraduates, L ibrary Skills and Strategies is a required tw o-unit course. Because of the special needs of our student body, I have been experim enting w ith teaching the course over tw o weekends. Instead of ten class meetings of one hour and forty minutes each, my section (one of four offered each quarter) is sched­ uled to meet 9 to 5 on Saturday, 1 to 5 on Sunday, and 9 to 5 on the following Saturday. One would think th a t no student in his right m ind would be willing to spend an entire weekend learning about the library, but each tim e my weekend course is of­ fered I have to tu rn people aw ay in order to keep the enrollm ent under thirty. I face a real challenge of trying to hold the stu­ dents’ attention for an eight-hour stand. Needless to say, I can ’t lecture for eight hours any m ore than they can listen for eight hours. W h at I do is struc­ ture the course w ith units (the card catalog, ency­ clopedias, indexes, etc.) and I lecture on each topic from sixty to ninety minutes. This is followed by a lab assignment w hich im m ediately reinforces w hat they’ve just learned. The entire class works on the assignment in the library w ith my assistance. One assignm ent works especially well in this m arathon setting, because it takes several hours to complete. After explaining the scope and arrange­ m ent of about thirty ready reference sources, I di­ vide the class into groups of five and divide the ref­ erence books into as m any groups. The class then has the responsibility to answ er fifty picayune questions. Every tw enty minutes I rotate the books so th a t everyone has a chance to see them . Since working in groups adds a little com petition to the scavenger hunt, the students get so involved I have to force them out at five o’clock. This m ethod solves several problems norm ally associated w ith your typical scavenger hunt reference assignment. The books are there in the classroom, so th e re’s no frus­ tration trying to find them on the shelf; everyone has equal tim e to see every book; and it doesn’t m atter if students give answers to their classmates, because the group is encouraged to work together. Grades are based prim arily on individual proj­ ects which are turned in a m onth later. This final assignment always involves tying together every­ thing learned in the 2 day session. For example, I m ight have them dem onstrate their knowledge of search strateg y by research in g a to p ic of th e ir choice. I see some definite disadvantages w ith the m a ra ­ thon m ethod. I t’s hard for some students to absorb so m uch in so little time. Slower students do not surface in tim e to receive extra help. I ’m available M a y 1&84 / 235 for help after the course is over, but most students complete their final assignment on their own even though they may suddenly realize that it did n ’t all sink in. I also have a problem squeezing the same am ount of m aterial into the compact tim e span. Somehow we always seem rushed at the end. I think, though, that the many advantages out­ weigh the disadvantages. Students can take a li­ brary skills course w ithout it interfering w ith their regular classload. They perceive it as relatively painless since it’s over too quickly for boredom to set in. Because the course is always scheduled the first two weekends of the quarter, many students find th at they can use their new skills for other classes later in the same quarter. Best of all, there’s a greater opportunity to experim ent. An eight- hour chunk can be divided in m any more ways than ten ninety-m inute pieces. If I w ant to spend three hours on a particular concept, no problem. The possibilities for different conceptual models and activities are endless. Indeed, 70 percent of the students agree th at they would like to take another course scheduled at the same time. If now you think you might also try a weekend m arathon, here’s my advice. 1) Schedule it early in th e q u a rte r/s e m e s te r b efo re stu d e n ts are too bogged down in other classes. 2) Keep the class as small as possible if everyone will be working on the same assignment at the same time. 3) Be prepared to d evote your e n tire life to BI for tw o solid weeks. ■ ■ Kirk honored as first BI librarian of the year Thomas Kirk, director of the Hutchins Library at Berea College, Kentucky, has been named the first recipient of the Miriam Dudley BI L ibrarian of the Year Award for 1984. Kirk will be pre­ sented w ith the aw ard at th e B ib lio g ra p h ic I n ­ struction Section’s p ro ­ gram meeting on Tues­ day, June 26, 2:00-5:30 p.m . T he M iriam D udley Award consists of $1,000 presented to a librarian who has m ade an espe­ cially significant contri­ bution to the advance­ Thomas Kirk m e n t of b ib lio g ra p h ic in s tru c tio n . It honors Miriam Dudley, reference librarian at the Univer­ sity of California, Los Angeles, whose pioneering efforts in the field of bibliographic instruction led tt) the form ation of the Bibliographic Instruction Section. The aw ard has been funded by M ountain­ side Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Nominees should have achieved distinction in such areas as planning and im plem entation of a bibliographic instruction program th a t has served as a model for other programs; development of courses on b ib lio g ra p h ic in stru c tio n in ALA- accredited library schools, or development of BI continuing education courses th at have served as models for other courses; research and publication th a t has had a dem onstrable im pact on the con­ cepts and methods of teaching bibliography; and active participation in organizations devoted to the prom otion and enhancem ent of bibliographic in­ struction. The deadline for nominations in letter form for the 1985 aw ard is December 1,1984. Send nom ina­ tions to Mary Reichel, Head, Reference D ep art­ m ent, Pullen Library, Georgia State University, 100 D ecatur St., S.E ., A tlanta, GA 30303. ■ ■ The Information Age at last A bomb threat sent online by someone using the University of C alifornia’s online public c at­ alog, MELVYL, resulted in the evacuation of the UC-San Diego Library early in March. The threat, which contained derogatory remarks about the library staff as well as the ominous promise th at a bomb would be set off in the li­ brary the next day, was input from a public te r­ minal th at employs a “comments” com m and, which the library uses for feedback on their au ­ tom ated system. All “comments” from the public are trans­ m itted to the University of C alifornia’s Division of L ib rary A utom ation located in Berkeley, w here they are stored and reviewed periodi­ cally. As luck w ould have it, the com m ents were reviewed the very m orning after the bomb message was sent. The Berkeley autom ation staff quickly notified the UC-San Diego L i­ brary adm inistration, who made the decision to evacuate. About 300 people were evacuated for three hours w hile a d ep u ty sheriff w ith a b o m b ­ sniffing dog searched the building. No explo­ sives were found. T he “com m ents” com m and has been dis­ abled tem porarily to discourage copycat false alarms. However, the library plans to reinstate it w ith an added explanation to MELVYL users th a t all comments are reviewed only once every one or two weeks at autom ation headquarters at Berkeley, and not at each of the nine UC Sys­ tem campuses.